Listening: Grimm brothers, Kinder- und Hausmärchen, Nr. 1, "Der Froschkönig" (10 min.); Albert E. erklärt Kroko & Co., 46:00-52:00 (end); Albert E. erklärt unsere Sonne, 0:00-11:30. We also had this collection of German Christmas songs playing while I worked and J drew.
Viewing: Let's play Kung Fu Panda (Deutsch), no. 11 (20 min.)
This is a video recording of two German young people playing the German version of the KFP video game and recording their chat while doing so. It may seem like a strange resource, but these videos (and there are now a lot of them) are fantastic for L2 development for several reasons. First, the game itself features a lot of spoken text.
Second, and more importantly, the players talk up a storm, using colloquial language and a wide range of speech patterns in ways impossible to get from audiobooks and movies. They talk fast, fun & slangy; they slur, shout, mumble, whisper, goof off & joke, argue, etc. Occasionally there is mild obscenity ("Scheiße!"), but nothing too bad, and quite frankly, besides naughty language being a natural part of an authentic speech environment, if picking some up provides J with even a modicum of extra titillation directed at the L2, I'm on board. Not that I ever signal anything but stern disapproval—I know my role!
J loves these videos and would watch them all day if I let him.
As for the Frog King, J has never had much to say about it and doesn't like it much. Not that I blame him. The way that the princess manages to lift the curse and be rewarded with true love and happiness not by overcoming her disgust with the froggy prince, as one would hope, but by giving into her revulsion and trying to kill him, is very strange. Not to mention the way a completely different story (Iron Heinrich) hijacks the end.
When we came to the section where the iron bands around Iron Heinrich's heart break, J said laconically: "Das ist unmöglich" (That's impossible).
Age 5.1.5
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